To summarise, Tennessee in the US has an “abstinence only”
law for it’s sex education curriculum. In itself this is nothing but shameful.
Sex is a primal urge and teaching kids to say “no” to it isn’t going to take
that urge away!!! But, what’s even madder is that they’ve amended the law to
state that schools should also teach kids to say no to “gateway sexual activity”.
Now the article points out that no one has been specific as to what constitutes
“gateway” sexual activity, but could be interpreted by individual schools to
mean kissing, hugging, even just holding hands, which if you can recall your
early teens, was the most innocent but most thrilling sensation ever!

These poor gateways. Pot is a gateway drug, toy guns are
gateway weapons, holding hands is gateway sex… next cheese will be gateway fast
food, and be banned.

The sex education in Australia is poor enough, but the sex
education in the US sounds insanely pathetic! Haven’t these conservative
parents/schools/law makers heard that ignorance is NOT bliss? Education, in all
facets of life, is so important, don’t they want their children to make
informed choices, rather than struggle against perfectly natural hormones, fail,
and end up putting their health at risk? GRRRRR I wish I had the answers; I
wish I could make people see abstinence is not the answer! The end of the
article states “a 2010 study
published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found
that abstinence education can delay sex among teens”, but what it doesn’t state
is that, once these teens do start having sex, even if it’s “delayed”, they may
not be having safe sex; fully understand how to negotiate consent around
different sexual acts, or be too afraid to speak to people if they are having
issues related to sexual activity.

You’ve reached
the end of another pointless rumination. Leave a comment to show that you care!